| Ford Motors Needs a Zipcar |
|
|
|
| Saturday, 26 May 2007 | |
|
Ford Motors Needs A Zipcar By Kevin Glennon, 5/08/2007 Ford Motors is going out of business, and they haven¹t changed direction enough to prove otherwise. Maybe they¹ve slowed their speed, but they¹re still headed off the cliff. It was a great move to dump Billy Ford from the helm of the ship, but other than that, what has Ford truly done? Where are the Bold Moves? Ford needs to completely reintroduce itself to America. The current stage consists of lecture-based, push-only methods, such as costly television commercials. If ever there were a giant corporation in need of experiential marketing and consumer dialog, Ford is it. Any car salesman will tell you that one of their biggest goals is to get a potential buyer to sit in a car. Once that¹s done, significant headway can be made towards making a sale. Likewise, Ford should be out on the streets not just getting people into their vehicles, but driving them. With a marketing budget in the billions, doing this is probably not only more cost efficient, but easier to manage. Enter ideas like Zipcar. Zipcar is a company that offers the ability to rent cars (through memberships) to people by the day, or even by the hour. It¹s designed to make cars very accessible to those that live in urban areas where owning a car is expensive, and reliable parking near impossible. Being the company that provides the fleet, much like GM did with Avis in 1979, is a great experiential marketing technique to get people to experience the vehicles. But Zipcar isn¹t a great fit. The brand caters to those who can¹t afford cars, or don¹t really need to own them. Likewise, Zipcar is constantly trying to be environmentally friendly, and Ford has been terrible in providing the hybrids and alternative fuel cars they suggested they¹d have available by now back in their corporate social responsibility document of 1999. Traditional rental companies are also seeing a value in this market, and as of April 2007, Hertz is offering hourly car rentals in limited areas. What Ford needs to do is move into this market quickly, and not as a partner to a Zipcar or Hertz. Ford needs to target customers who can afford cars and trucks. This is why Ford should create new partnerships with companies like Lowe¹s and Home Depot. People shopping at these stores are property owners, and often have at least two cars per household. Imagine if Ford had a short-term car rental option at Home Depot, where someone could show up, buy plenty of sheet rock, rent a new Ford F-150 pickup truck for 45 minutes, and go back to Home Depot and drive home in their own car. Zipcar and Hertz are charging about $12 per hour, but Ford could charge only a few dollars because it¹s a marketing expense, not a for-profit side company. After all, people want to know how their vehicle will fit into their lives, such as how well it can move sheet rock. Customers are never going to pull a trailer of weights up a colossal seesaw, nor will they regularly race to the edge of a canyon. Even though there are many other ways to lessen the costs of such a venture (such as having dealerships sponsor specific vehicles or locations), the point is Ford should be making bold moves by investing in them, not being afraid of them. With billions spent every year the price tag for something like this is minimal. Last year Zipcar doubled it¹s fleet and services with only a $20 million dollar investment. To Ford (a company that drops more than that in Superbowl commercials for one day out of the year) this is a no-brainer. Then again, when Americans were begging for hybrid models of their vehicles, Ford decided to release the GT; a $150,000 gas guzzling sports car that could go just about four times the legal speed limit in most states in America. ABOUT KEVIN GLENNON Kevin Glennon is a Boston-based creative strategist. His company is a small, full-service shop that regularly provides new ideas and efforts for companies in the Fortune 5 and small businesses arena alike. He can be reached via email at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it -------------------------- Nielson-Monitor Plus Special Industry Spotlight: Automotive Advertising. Nielsen News Release, New York, September 29, 2005. Perspectives On Corporate Sponsorship. Ford Motors, 1999. |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
